Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Gut em in the woods or back at camp?

roundoak,

Being so prepared is a surefire way for me to come home empty-handed.
Leave my knife at camp or in the truck - BANG.

were i am we take them out hole back to camp. we can clean 4 at a time. we do all of the cleaning, cutting grinding , and eating . i think if i get to were i can't do it my self i will quit killing them

I gut them where I have a reasonable shot @ seeing the coyotes on the pile and maybe get a poke @ them too.

Or, I don't gut them @ all. Top-down gutless and leave the guts-n-bones behind.

Neither does a dead deer. Shot a buck a few years back, gutted it, then left my pack beside the carcass and gutpile, then climbed back in my stand. In a little bit, his spikey companion returned and walked right over to the scene of the crime. Only thing that bothered him at all was my pack, which he sniffed, then returned the way he came.

They see dead deer all the time, as well as half-eaten ones. Anywhere there are vultures, deer guts in the open get cleaned up pronto. I forgot the liver of a PA buck once. Went back in an hour or so to retrieve it, and only a wet red smear in the grass marked the spot where I had dumped the innards.

Hunting deer is a leap of faith anyway and to test that throw a fork and salt and pepper shakers into your day pack.

Depends where Im at. If hunting at our cottage up north, I bring them back to the cabin, hang em and unzip them there. Have several two-tracks that run thru our property and its never too far of a drag to a truck. If I am hunting somewhere else, usually gut them where they fall.

I field dressing them in the field and if they are over bigger than average, I'll cut them in half to make them easier to handle and load.

I hunt on family or leased land that is between 25 and 125 miles from home, so hauling the back whole isn't practical.

I’m a primary public land hunter. I either guy where they fall if it’s a short drag to a road or do the gutless method if I have a good hike back to the truck. I like to process my own when I have time, if not there are a couple of good places local I can take the meat to.

But I agree probably 90% of the hunters I know in Alabama aren’t processing their own and many do take deer whole to the processor.

This! I take them to camp, quarter, slap in ice chest.

Damn nice buck! The country at the Matador Wildlife Management area in Cottle county looked like that. I used to quail hunt there. Mule deer and Whitetail on there.

Two hunters were dragging their dead deer back to their car. Another hunter approached pulling his along too. "Hey, I don't want to tell you how to do something ... but I can tell you that it's much easier if you drag the deer in the other direction. Then the antlers won't dig into the ground." After the third hunter left, the two decided to try it. A little while later one hunter said to the other, "You know, that guy was right. This is a lot easier!" "Yeah, but we're getting farther from the truck," the other said.

Take em back to camp.

Out of the wind, rain. Lights. Running water.

Cold beer.


Don’t gut - skin and quarter. Peel the back straps amd sweet meat out.

Or debone it hanging.

I'm not sure when the last time is I've cut something up not on the ground. Texas 12+ years ago I reckon.

The bucks JG deals with are fat porkers!

I haven’t read the whole thread so I assume It’s already been said, but I have seen deer and elk walk right by a gut pile without batting an eye more than once.

That’s a pretty decent buck there Gregory

Had a pard tell me hunters in his locale don’t even know how to run a knife on a game animal. They wear them on a belt only for show.

Everything goes from the field into a rig, and off to a processor. Guts inside.

YMMV
😎

Absolutely...Seen it many times, and killed deer and elk within 60 yards of a gut pile from the previous morning.

😎

Yep to these fine fellas....

One of the funniest things that I've seen while hunting deer was a coyote running across a cut corn field while dragging a gut pile by the trachea with three other coyotes chasing along behind in a effort to get their share.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I gutted a whitetail. Just haven’t found the need for it.

Gut'em where they drop.